It’s easy to see from Joe Neal’s birding story that Beaver Lake is an outstanding place to study the sometimes quirky habits of birds. A seat in a tree stand while deer hunting is another frontrow seat for some airborne entertainment.
The hunt isn’t all about deer. It’s what you see in the woods from that perch up a tree or on the ground that truly amazes. It’s a free ticket to this wildlife show when the critters go about their business, thinking no one is around.
The show for me usually involves raccoons, a bobcat, maybe an opossum munching persimmons.
This deer season’s best performance so far involves birds, a whole gang of them.
It was late afternoon about a month ago, a cloudy October day perfect for some tree-stand meditation.
I was comfortable in my ladder stand, wooden recurve bow in my lap and an arrow nocked to the string. If some deer showed up, fine. I was content to just sit in a place of such peace.
Then the birds came. One tufted titmouse to be exact, then a whole rowdy fl ock.
One, then two and three tufted titmice landed in the branches mere feet above me and started in with their “scree-scree-scree” cry, loud as they could muster. More titmice landed in branches all around me, some close enough to touch.
A squadron of Carolina chickadees joined the brazen titmice. Now my meditative spot was a crazy riot of bird cries, a mosh pitof birds right by my treestand stage. I wished for earplugs.
It was like these birds were saying, “Hey deer! Stay the heck away from this tree! Danger, danger!”
They kept the racket up for about 30 seconds.
Then, quick as they came, the birds left. Only an overcast sky was above me now. The woodlot was quiet again.
In years of deer hunting I’d never seen anything like this. What a treat to have 15, maybe 25, birds perched all around, sounding off and with their feathers in fl uff like they’re ready to fi ght.
I left the stand at twilight with a true trophy, the memory of this swarm of birds.
I’ve run this story by some other hunters. “Those birds were doing their job,” one said. “They sounded off long as they needed to, then they left.”
I meant to ask Joe about this when we were birding at Beaver Lake on Nov. 1, but our trip was so exciting I forgot. Whatever the reason, there’s no show that beats what’s seen in nature.
FLIP PUTTHOFF IS OUTDOORS EDITOR FOR NWA MEDIA.
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Outdoor, Pages 6 on 11/21/2013